We have a couple of beds either side of the back door, which have become rather overgrown.  One is the home for our wisteria, which has been great this year, albeit rather early.  There were also some very straggly hebes that we have cleared out to allow some more decorative planting.  We have bought some hardy osteospermums and gazanias for the cleared beds by the back doors.  The colour schemes are yellows and oranges to reflect the morning sunlight we get on those beds.

Despite the small amount of effort, the main focus this week has been on the vegetable plots.  I weeded all the vegetable beds (where seedlings are starting to emerge), prepped and planted the brassica bed with red cabbages and purple sprouting broccoli, planted out some of the red onion seedlings and pricked out the green cabbages.

Cabbages Kalibos and purple sprouting broccoli in the bed at home / Carrot seedlings Early Nantes 2

Parsnip seedlings Gladiator / Cabbage seedlings Minicole

Whilst weeding the asparagus bed, which is not yet showing signs of life, I discovered that most of the weeds were in fact self-seeded tomatoes.  As we were growing Marmandes and Sweet Olives in growing bags on that site last year, these seedlings may be interesting crosses, so I potted on some of them, to see what they turn out as.

Tomato seedlings (self-seeded)

We have also planted out the Mediterranean vegetables (tomatoes and aubergines – some in beds and some in pots so that we can compare progress.  The weather has been fairly grey and drizzly day so we have only had to worry about watering in new plants, leaving nature to take care of the established ones.